Gesture recognition

Gesture recognition is the science behind computer hardware and software that allows them to recognize human gestures as input. The Kinect is an example of a gesture recognition device. It observes the motion of a player's body, and interprets certain motions as input to video games. Gesture recognition has also been implemented with tablet and smartphone devices, that permit operating system control based on finger gestures such as pinching and swiping.

Pinch

Pinch describes a finger gesture used with a touch screen interface that supports multi-touch. The user touches the screen with two or more fingers, and moves them together or apart to zoom in or out. This function is also referred to as a semantic zoom or pinch-to-zoom.

Swipe

Swipe may refer to any of the following:

1. For any touch screen interface, swipe or slide is a term that describes laying your finger on a screen and moving in any direction. For example, with a smartphone, you may need to slide or swipe your finger to bring up the prompt to unlock the phone.

2. When referring to a credit card, a swipe refers to sliding the card through a magnetic card reader.

3. Slide may also describe the motion of swiping your finger. A slide may also describe a slide in a slideshow. For this reason, when you describe a finger motion you should use "swipe" instead of "slide" to help prevent confusion.